Between 1497 and 1499, Vasco da Gama, the famous Portuguese navigator, discovered the maritime route to India via the Cape of Good Hope. His flagship, the St. Gabriel, a caravel, was a type of ship commonly used by Spanish and Portuguese seafarers in the 15th and 16th centuries. Vasco da Gama travelled to India three times in all but didn’t return home from the third trip, dying as Portuguese viceroy in Goa in 1524.